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Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2009

The world will experience the stunning beauty of the Arabian sunset as a backdrop to the inaugural 2009 Formula 1™ Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with the announcement a new race start time at 5pm. As a result, for the first time in Formula 1™ history, a race is scheduled to start in daylight and end during night-time.

“Yas Marina Circuit has been built from the outset to host day and night-time activities,” said Richard Cregan, CEO of Abu Dhabi Motorsports Management. “Staging Formula 1’s first ever day/night race offers us the unique opportunity to demonstrate the circuit’s inbuilt flexibility and state-of-the-art facilities. It has always been our intention to showcase to the world this spectacular venue and this decision allows just that opportunity.

It is the best of both worlds, spectators and television viewers will see the stunning architecture of the world’s newest Formula 1™ circuit during the afternoon sunlight and then experience what it is like under floodlights. We hope that everyone will be impressed by what they experience and see.”

Yas Marina Circuit’s lighting system utilises the most advanced technology available. The 24-40 meter tall outfield floodlights provide horizontal lighting. The smaller 7-15 meter infield fixtures have a highly sophisticated ‘vertical controllable beam’ designed specifically to provide a consistent daylight effect as well as removing shadow and glare at driver level. The lights will be on from the start of the race to ensure a seamless transition from daylight to dark.

Race Track

Sutil stars in Monza practice !

Will there be a another surprise in Monza , watch out tomo on STAR Sports .

Adrian Sutil was the surprise name at the top of the timesheets as Force India threatened another shock result in the Italian GP.

A fortnight after Giancarlo Fisichella claimed pole and finished second in Belgium, breaking the team's points duck in Formula One, Sutil underlined their improvement.

The German posted the fastest lap of the day in the afternoon 90-minute session around Monza, narrowly edging out Lewis Hamilton, who was quickest in the morning, by 0.012 seconds.

Sutil recorded a time of one minute 23.924 seconds for the 5.793 kilometre track, finishing 0.239secs ahead of another shock name in Renault's Romain Grosjean.

The French marque, currently embroiled in scandal over the 'crash-gate' furore, finished second and third in the afternoon session, with double world champion Fernando Alonso nearly 0.4secs adrift of Sutil.

Renault's improvement is due to the fact they have re-installed KERS on their cars for this race, the system providing a burst of power at the touch of a button.

McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen, who had finished second to Hamilton earlier in the day, was fourth in the afternoon, followed by the BMW Sauber of Robert Kubica and Toyota's Timo Glock.

Glock had finished bottom in the morning, with the German involved in the only major incident of the day, spinning prior to bouncing heavily over the newly re-moulded and far higher kerbs that now dominate the three chicanes around the track.

Nick Heidfeld was seventh for a resurgent BMW Sauber, with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen eighth, followed by the Williams of Kazuki Nakajima and Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi.

Hamilton was forced to settle for 11th, almost a second slower than his morning run and evidently running a different spec.

Vitantonio Liuzzi, on his debut for Force India after replacing Fisichella, was 12th, just under a second behind team-mate Sutil.

If the top of the order was a surprise, so was the bottom five as Rubens Barrichello was 16th for Brawn GP, followed by Nico Rosberg in his Williams and Sebastian Vettel for Red Bull.

Championship leader Jenson Button was a lowly 19th in his Brawn, 1.5secs behind Sutil and 0.7secs slower than in the morning as he, too, tested out different options.

As for the rear of the field, that was brought up by Fisichella on his first drive for Ferrari, but, like Hamilton and Button, his time of 1:25.543 was appreciably slower than his best lap earlier in the day.

Fisichella switches over to Ferrari !

Giancarlo Fisichella will drive for Ferrari for the rest of the 2009 Formula 1 season before taking a new role as their reserve driver in 2010.The Italian, 36, will replace Luca Badoer as stand-in for the injured Felipe Massa for the final five races. "It has always been an ambition," said Fisichella, who has been released from his contract with Force India.

Force India are yet to name a replacement for Fisichella with reserve driver Vitantonio Liuzzi the favourite. Fisichella, who formerly raced for Minardi, Jordan, Benetton, Renault and Sauber, will begin his Ferrari career on home soil at the Italian Grand Prix on 13 September.

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali confirmed the appointment saying: "We considered what could be his role inside the team in the near future, also taking this year's experiences into account. He will be the reserve driver in 2010. "We have chosen Fisichella because we can expect him to make a valuable contribution in this final part of the season. "He has shown, throughout his long career, that he is fast and competitive and we are therefore proud to be able to run an Italian driver in our home race."

Force India team principal Mallya had insisted on Tuesday that he would turn out his regular team for Monza. But after extensive discussions with Ferrari, Mallya has agreed to release Fisichella from his contract, which was due to expire at the end of the season. "For any Italian driver, a Ferrari race seat is a long-held dream and for Giancarlo it was no exception," Mallya said. "No-one should stand in the way of this. "The agreement will secure Fisichella's long-term future with Ferrari and it would be incorrect to jeopardise this. "We would like to stress that we have not agreed any financial settlement with Ferrari and would like to thank Giancarlo for all his help over the past one-and-a-half seasons and for our first world championship points." Fisichella's parting gift to Force India was second place at the Belgium Grand Prix, handing the team their first podium and points in their second season in F1. Even before his impressive performance at Spa-Francorchamps, the 36-year-old had been tipped to replace Badoer, who has struggled since his promotion from Ferrari reserve driver.

Badoer was drafted in to replace Massa, who suffered serious head injuries at the Hungarian Grand Prix, after legendary seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher was forced to shelve his comeback plans. While Massa is targeting a return in 2010, the Italian team ran out of patience with Badoer, who qualified last at both the European and Belgian GPs. While Kimi Raikkonen claimed Ferrari's first win of 2009 in Spa, his team-mate trailed in last, nearly 48 seconds slower than the driver in front. "We wish to thank Luca Badoer for the team spirit he demonstrated in these circumstances," added Domenicali. "It is a shame he was unable to show his true worth in these last two races, tackled under conditions which anyone would have found difficult."

Fisichella, a veteran of more than 200 grands prix, will be expected to be much more competitive as Ferrari prepare to race in front of their enthusiastic home fans in Monza.
"I am grateful to Vijay Mallya for allowing me this opportunity," said Fisichella, a three-time race winner. "For Vijay to have allowed it to become a reality is very generous and I hope in my turn I have helped Force India grow up and be on the right path to achieve their own ambitions."

F1 fans gear up for European Grand prix !

The 11th round of the 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship sees yet more driver changes. Of course, the original plan was to have Michael Schumacher making his return to Formula One for Ferrari amid much fanfare, but the multiple champion’s neck injury ruled him out.

Instead, Luca Badoer returns to the category for the first time in almost 10 years, intent on finishing the race and scoring the first world championship points of his F1 career. At the same time, GP2 star Romain Grosjean takes over from Nelson Piquet at Renault, who will be racing after the suspension handed down to them by the stewards in Hungary was overturned by the FIA Court of Appeal in Paris on Monday.

Both teams ran well here last year, and have high hopes now, but Red Bull and McLaren both fancy their chances and Brawn are desperate for Jenson Button to increase his points’ lead which has been seriously eroded in the past three events.

“The track is quite fun when it goes round the edge of the marina and over the bridge,” Button says. “It's quite challenging for the drivers with so many turns and the added factor of being surrounded by barriers means you have to maintain your concentration. There's been a lot of work going on at the factory following our shutdown and with the cars at the front being so close at the moment, it will be an interesting weekend."

It remains to be seen whether Brawn have got to the bottom of their tyre temperature issues, and the signs are that Valencia won’t be as warm as Hungary, where they struggled.

“It’s great to be getting back to business after the four-week break,” Hungarian Grand Prix winner Lewis Hamilton says. “I’m still buzzing from the win in Hungary and I’m hopeful of being able to carry that pace into the Valencia weekend - particularly with our new upgrades to the car. It’s a very demanding circuit, the kind of place that punishes any mistakes hard. It’s quite tight and relatively slow, so it should suit our package. It’s also very difficult to overtake, as we discovered last year - but, with our KERS, Mercedes-Benz has proved that anything can happen and I’m once again hoping that it will provide the difference in the race.”

The 5.419-kilometre (3.367-mile) street course uses roads that run through the recently refurbished Juan Carlos I Marina, formerly the base for the 32nd America's Cup in 2007. It features 25 corners and a minimum width of 14 metres all the way around the lap, and incorporates sufficient run-off for the expected top speeds of more than 300 km/h (186 mph). Even though it’s a street track, drivers are on the throttle 68 percent of the time, and with relatively high levels of downforce and high brake wear teams must be canny with their set-ups.

The race will mark the 150th race win for Bridgestone’s F1 tyres. “This is an interesting track,” says Hirohide Hamashima, their director of motorsport tyre development. “It has the high-speed configuration of a permanent circuit, however the track surface gives away that this is only a temporary facility. There are numerous turns, yet there are also many high speed sections and we see speeds of around 300 km/h five times during the course of a lap. There are low-speed corners too, so some heavy braking does take place. On the slippery surface that accompanies a street course it is difficult to find grip off line.

“Last year we saw a lot of circuit surface evolution over the weekend and it was very much a learning process for everyone who attended the race. We also found last year that the infamous gap between the bridge surface and the road surface presented no difficulties for our Formula One tyres. Last year our visit to Valencia was a momentous one as it was here that we celebrated our 200th Grand Prix participation since our entry in 1997.”

As in Hungary, Bridgestone will again bring their soft and super soft compounds.

Shanghai Grand Prix here on sportsline !

Malaysian Grand Prix on Sportsline ! Brawn GP stun Formula 1 world

Button takes pole in Malaysia  

Jenson Button set a searing pace once again for Brawn GP as he secured pole position for Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix.

The British driver clocked a time of one minute 35.181 seconds to secure the fifth pole position of his career and his second in as many weeks.

 

Jarno Trulli will line up alongside Button on the front row of the grid after finishing second with a lap of 1min 35.273sec in the closing seconds.

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Kimi Raikkonen snatches the ultimate title ..

It has been a real roller coaster of a season and the finale in Brazil was a fitting climax to a year that has enthralled fans both on and off the circuit. Kimi Raikkonen has achieved what seemed all but impossible and he overcame a seven point deficit by winning the this afternoon at Interlagos while Lewis Hamilton suffered his own problems.

The start of the 71 lap Grand Prix saw pole-sitter Felipe Massa sprint in the lead with Kimi Raikkonen making a good getaway and slotting into second. One man not making a good start was Lewis Hamilton who dropped from second to fourth and then compounded his problems by running off track and losing another four positions.

At that point Hamilton will have been frustrated but he was still in the race and the championship race was very much still on. Lap seven however saw the McLaren Mercedes slow dramatically with a gearshift issue. Hamilton dropped from sixth position to 18th and while he was able to reset the electronic systems and get back under power, his title hope were in tatters.

Out front Raikkonen shadowed Massa and seemed content to bide his time behind his Ferrari team-mate. The turning points for Raikkonen came in his second round of stops as he was able to stay out a few more laps and once he had made his final pit stop, emerged in the lead of the race. Fernando Alonso at this point ran in a lonely third and was not able to mount a serious challenge

Raikkonen took the chequered flag by just over a second from 2006 race winner Massa and with 110 championship points on the board, takes the title by one point from Hamilton who battled back to seventh position on track and Alonso who finished third.

"I always believed we could recover from our poor results and do a better job than our rivals," Raikkonen said. "So I never gave up and it was a great result for me and the team.

"I wasn't really 100 per cent sure of what was happening at the end as we were still waiting for still to finish - I had to wait a long time to hear that I had finally won it. I waited and waited. It was amazing for me that after all the last races we have had such a good finish to the season and I am very happy now."

Nico Rosberg put in a great drive in his Williams Toyota and finished in fourth position after a rather hectic battle with the BMW Sauber’s of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld who finished fifth and sixth. With Hamilton seventh, the final point went to Jarno Trulli who put in a strong performance for Toyota to claim a much needed championship point.

Hamilton delighted with Massa taking the pole ..

Lewis Hamilton did all that could be reasonably expected when he qualified on the front row for today's Brazilian Grand Prix. Felipe Massa, probably running less fuel and enjoying a small weight advantage, claimed pole position for his home grand prix. The Brazilian is likely to play a significant part in the settling of the championship in this final round, particularly as Hamilton finds himself in the middle of a Ferrari sandwich, Kimi Raikkonen having qualified third. The third contender, Fernando Alonso, qualified fourth for the second race in succession

Hamilton was immediately thrown into another dispute when he was accused, during a press conference, of having blocked Raikkonen after emerging from the pits just as the Finn was starting his last lap. Hamilton stayed off the racing line but Raikkonen had been distracted enough to run wide slightly at the exit of the next corner. Hamilton said he had been told by radio of Raikkonen's approach.

'I couldn't tell just how close he was,' said Hamilton. 'I stayed where I was, backed off and he went past me. I don't feel that I hindered his lap. I apologised afterwards in case I had caused a problem. I just need to do a completely clean job this weekend. If anything, Kimi could win this race and that would be good for me in terms of the championship because my first priority is to beat Fernando.'

Raikkonen was his usual phlegmatic self when discussing the incident. 'I don't know how much time I lost,' said Raikkonen. 'For sure he could have found a slightly easier way to let me past but what's happened has happened.'

Hamilton, realising that Massa could be a wild card, said he was happy to be on the front row.

'It was really close,' said Hamilton. 'I really enjoyed the session. The car was nice to drive; it was a really good lap. It was quite straight forward. I lost a bit of time in the last corner, not because of a mistake but because I didn't want to spoil the lap right at the end. I'm just buzzing, feeling really excited. The car feels great and I love the circuit. I feel very relaxed and it was good to see quite few British flags out there. I appreciate the support.'

Massa said he made a small mistake on his last lap and was surprised to win pole position at this race for the second year in succession.

'It's a fantastic feeling,' said Massa. 'I made a mistake and I was afraid Lewis could beat me. It was very close and I was expecting to hear I was second, but I had done enough. The reaction of the crowd was fantastic. I'm in front and I'm sure the team is happy with me. We'll see what happens in the race.'

One of the few positive points from Hamilton's retirement in China two weeks ago was the knowledge that the championship would be settled at one of the oldest and most charismatic venues on the F1 calendar. Perched on an escarpment, Interlagos is 750 metres above sea level. At the time of track's inauguration in 1940, the view of Sao Paulo in the distance clearly showed Congonhas, but the local airport is now lost within the urban sprawl that has engulfed Interlagos, thus adding further ambiance to a track that may be frayed round the edges but which has always been loved for its challenge and character.

When Interlagos staged a round of the championship for the first time in 1973, the track measured 4.9 miles as it twisted and turned spectacularly within itself. Unable to pay the price of incorporating the necessary safety standards, the owners cut the circuit length in half during a 10-year absence from the F1 calendar. When the Brazilian Grand Prix returned from a period at Rio de Janeiro, the drivers were delighted and relieved to find that the essential flavour of Interlagos remained. Named after a Brazilian F1 hero killed in a plane crash in 1977, the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace stands out as a proper place to go motor racing in a series increasingly populated by immaculate but bland facilities.

The pits may be ancient and cramped but the view from the back of the paddock, on the highest part of the track, sums up the appeal. Interlagos comprises a twisting infield section on the valley floor and a long, fast climb to the main straight before plunging left and downhill at the first corner. Setting up an F1 car to meet the disparate requirements of this track is as tricky as actually tackling it. While a driver may want aerodynamic downforce to provide grip and traction in the tight corners, the wings necessary to achieve that are a major hindrance in the quest to reach 185mph at the end of 17 seconds of flat-out driving on the top straight. A shortfall in performance here would leave a driver vulnerable to an overtaking move when approaching the braking area for the first corner.

The track has been recently resurfaced and while that may have removed some of the notoriously difficult bumps, the fresh asphalt has created unforeseen problems with tyre wear. With the track temperature yesterday reaching 57 degrees, the highest this season, drivers were struggling to avoid excessive wear on the softer of the two types of tyre, both of which must be used during today's 71-lap race.

Formula One set for three-way thriller in Brazil !!!

Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen fight for the Formula One title in Brazil on Sunday in what promises to be one of the sport's great showdowns.

The final grand prix of an astonishing and controversial season, in a city as crazy about motor racing as Italians are about Ferrari, has all the elements of a three-way thriller.


McLaren's Hamilton, the 22-year-old Briton who has been the revelation of the year whatever happens at Interlagos, can become the first rookie champion in 58 years and also the youngest.

Formula One's first black driver has 107 points, four more than his estranged Spanish team mate and double world champion Alonso.

Alonso can join a select band of triple champions as well as becoming the first driver since the late Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio in 1957 to win back-to-back titles with different teams.

Three points behind Alonso is Ferrari's Raikkonen, who has won more races than the other two but has also paid the price for his team's comparative unreliability.

If the unflappable Finn were to add the drivers' title to Ferrari's constructors' crown, it would be a remarkable fightback for a man who was 17 points adrift of Hamilton with two races remaining.

Formula One has seen nothing like it since the Australian Grand Prix of 1986, the last time that three drivers entered the final race of the season vying for the title.

“Motor racing and Formula One has never been more popular than it is just now,” said Britain's triple champion Jackie Stewart, a big fan of Hamilton's. “We've had a better season than we've ever had.”

Raikkonen and Alonso will be going all out to win while Hamilton can afford a more strategic approach, knowing that third or even fourth place could be all he requires at an unfamiliar and tricky anti-clockwise circuit.

The youngster has learnt his lesson from the last race in China, where he might have wrapped up the title had he not skidded into a gravel trap at the pit lane entry.


“China was another valuable lesson for me this season, and an incident I will take from and try to develop as a driver,”

Hamilton said in a team preview.: “I moved on from the disappointment pretty quickly and since leaving Shanghai, my sole focus has been on Brazil,” added the Briton, whose boyhood idol Ayrton Senna was born and buried in Sao Paulo.

“Whilst I might be ahead by four points, this Championship is still very open. I will do what I can to score the points I need, and the rest is out of our hands,” he added.

While Hamilton must be considered the favourite, and will revive local fans' memories of Senna with his similar yellow helmet, Alonso won both of his titles in Brazil and has experience on his side.

The Spaniard will also have a special scrutineer appointed by the governing body to make sure, despite McLaren's oft-repeated policy of driver equality, that Hamilton receives no special treatment from the British team.

“We can categorically state that they will be given the exact same opportunity to win the race and the Championship,” said McLaren chief executive Martin Whitmarsh